Barry Tompkins: In academic circles, call me professor

Bay Area sportscaster Barry Tompkins sits in a restaurant on Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, in Fairfax, Calif. He began his career in San Francisco in 1965 and has worked for HBO and Fox Sports Net. He is known for his work as a boxing commentator, but has covered football and other sports. He lives nearby in Ross.
(IJ photo/Frankie Frost
Frankie Frost

It was an innocuous enough question in the great scheme of things, and it suddenly made me come to the stark realization that not only had I never read a textbook on whatever this thing is at which I make my living — I'm not sure I ever read one about

anything. I carried them around a lot during my years of academic mediocrity, but who knew you had to read the darned things? Besides which, they were really heavy — both in tonnage and in content.

And yet, here I am about to embark on a once a week teaching adventure at Dominican University that after the first 2½-hour class will constitute my longest tenure in a classroom at any institution of higher learning. I feel honored to be among the wise professorial sorts who impart their wisdom to the students of this college. I would have been one of those students myself but for two minor sticking points that kept me from attaining academic excellence.

One was that my parents thought of college as four more years of keeping me in salami sandwiches and on their payroll. The other was that I was far more interested in the by-products of the academic process — things like raging hangovers, panty raids and solving the world's ills in the student union, than I was in pesky annoyances like attending class.

But, it turned out that over the course of the past 40 years or so I've learned a little bit about how a sports event is broadcast on national television and how to survive in one of the most tenuous industries this side of being a member of the Flying Wallendas. It's left me with a couple of profound thoughts.

One is why would anyone want to do what I do for a living who does not have an admiring affinity to the Marquis de Sade? Allowing yourself to be judged by someone whose idea of a good time is ingesting a 12 pack of long-necked Buds just before doing a face plant in the guacamole dip — usually in the middle of the second quarter — or worse yet, a TV critic whose qualification is personal ownership of a TV set?

Yet, they're out there — fresh-faced and eager. And thus I look upon this plunge into academia as an opportunity to convince these bright young minds that their mother was right that they should pursue a career in law, medicine or worm farming. Dominican University, I understand, has a fascinating worm-farming curriculum.

For those intrepid learners who don't run screaming from the room after the first 15 minutes, I can offer one bit of sage advice born of spending almost five decades working in TV sports. If you're looking for security, longevity, stability or unqualified acceptance, reconsider worm farming. If you're masochistic, nomadic, hungry (and understanding of the fact you might remain so) and think you'd enjoy working in life's toyshop — I'm here for you. This is all I know how to do. If I knew how to make a Slurpee I'd be working in a 7-Eleven. For better or worse, I don't.

My class is a part of the humanities department at Dominican. My qualifications — and only partially so — are that I'm human. I'm assuming that's what that means.

I look forward to joining another club that would never before have me as a member. My contribution to the great minds of my teaching peers is that I can get them Giants tickets.

In the meantime I've bought a sweater vest, put patches on the sleeve of my houndstooth sports coat and have considered smoking a pipe.